This invention relates to a fruit harvester, and particularly to a harvester having orbiting assemblies of fingers or wands which are inserted into the canopy of a fruit tree to dislodge the fruit.
In one known fruit harvester described in part in U.S. Pat. No. 5,946,896 to Daniels, four oscillating fruit removal heads are mounted on a common frame which is positioned where desired by an articulated telescoping boom carried on a wheeled chassis which can be navigated between rows of fruit trees. The fruit removal heads each have a plurality of agitation wands which, in use, extend into the canopy of the fruit tree and dislodge the fruit. The oscillation heads are each mounted eccentrically with respect to a drive shaft rotated by pressurized hydraulic fluid fed to a respective motor from a central hydraulic power unit carried on the chassis. The hydraulic power units and each corresponding motor are operatively coupled in fluid communication through a series of hydraulic supply lines and hydraulic return lines.
Tethers are provided to restrain the oscillating fruit removal heads from contacting or engaging each other and the direction of movement of each oscillating fruit removal head is selected to balance the opposing movement of the other fruit removal heads in order to stabilize the fruit removal assembly. Despite such precautions, the Daniels harvester suffers from a lack of synchronization and this has some rather unfortunate consequences which have contributed to making the harvester somewhat less desirable than it could be.
This invention provides alternative drive means for orbiting the fruit removal heads or panels and alignment means for coupling the fruit removal heads or panels to a structural frame for supporting the panels which are intended to alleviate the aforementioned synchronization problems.
The invention is part of a fruit harvester, specifically, a fruit removal assembly. The fruit removal assembly has four panels with a plurality of fingers that extend into a fruit tree canopy when in use. The panels are supported by a structural frame, which in turn is connected to a positioning arm mounted on a vehicle that can be driven through an orchard. In operation, the fruit removal assembly is mechanically driven by a single hydraulic motor. An anchor bar is also attached to the structural frame, but spaced from the frame by support members, such that the anchor bar is equidistant between the panels and intermediate between the structural frame and the panels. A series of tethers span between the anchor bar and the panels, two per panel. These tethers function to restrain the movement of the panels, thereby preventing contact between the panels during operation of the fruit harvester.